Elegant Engineering by a Ridiculous Individual

SEO… Yourself?

I was reading one of Cap Watkins’ old blog posts (which you should definitely check out, along with his other writings), The end of self-curation the other day, and it really got me thinking.

I agree that ultimately the idea that this generations parents are probably not going to be keeping a box of pictures in the attic. And really, I think this blog post probably pertains more to people professionally than personally. But you never know.

So what then? In a world where your whole life and story are on social media, how do you make sure that people are finding out the parts of you that you really want them to? I remember back when I got my first “official” job as a developer, which was as an intern at DealerTrend, I was talking with one of my co-workers and the topic of “SEO’ing yourself” came up. Wait a minute. What the heck does that even mean? I don’t want to be found, why would I do that?

Look, it doesn’t matter if you want to be found, or not. If you’re on social media, the world can see you. Your family, your employer, and frankly your stalker. You may have all those fancy privacy settings turned on, but it doesn’t matter. You’re still out there, in some dark corner of the Internet, there is a section dedicated to you. Which means, you might as well embrace it, and SEO your online presence. Which, really means, make the things you want people to know easier to find, so they stop looking for the things you don’t want them to. But… How do I actually do that?

Well, lot’s of ways. One way, especially professionally, is to create your own website (or blog). And given how easy that is now-a-days, there isn’t really any excuse NOT to. You can also have social media accounts that you update regularly that are public, and have a 2nd one that just your friends on are. If someone finds your public one, they’re going to see what you want, and in all likelihood, stop looking for anything more. Even on a personal level, why not have one that is dedicated to just things important to you? That way when your kids are wondering who you were ‘back in the day’ they can see the things that spoke to you the most, and not just whatever your fleeting thought for that day was – along with the cruft & things other people thought you wanted to see.

I am sure there are tons of different ways to SEO yourself. I would even venture to say that it’s like a website – it isn’t something you can ever stop doing. Especially because the rules of the Internet are changing by the hour right now.